


Pretend We've Got Ages

by Lavendergaia



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-04-03 20:00:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4113127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lavendergaia/pseuds/Lavendergaia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was strange growing older as everyone around her stayed 18. She was just glad Fitz was aging with her.</p><p>"AU where people age until they reach 18 and then stop aging until they meet their soul mate so they can grow old together."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pretend We've Got Ages

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to ardentaislinn and ruthedotcom for betaing! Double thank you to Aislinn for the summary.

Jemma spends her 25th birthday with Fitz, as she’s spent every birthday since she turned 18. He takes her to dinner, offers to take her out even though she knows he doesn’t actually want to go out, but she declines. Their current project at Sci-Ops won’t care that it’s her birthday tonight and using the centrifuge with a hangover-induced migraine has never worked out well for her before. So they stay home and Fitz polishes off her piece of cake before cutting a third for himself and Jemma stares at him, his curly hair in disarray after changing from restaurant clothes to house clothes, and she wonders what it’s like to never grow old.

She knows if she voices this to Fitz, he’ll start to question her about quarter-life crisis, joke about getting a sports car and other stereotypes he’s picked up from all of the American television he’s watched. But as she gets another year older—truly older, there are days when she gets into bed after eighteen hours in the lab and she’s sure she’ll never move again—she wonders what it’s like to not worry about that.

It’s not just that she feels old, even though they’re two of the visibly oldest people on their floor at Sci-Ops. Scientists and soulmates, that’s the joke, right? Can’t get out of the lab long enough to find a person to be their soulmate, might as well grow old with your microscope or your wrench.

A couple of the agents they work with, Level 7s and 8s, they’re older, married, found their soulmates ages ago, but a lot of them have been with S.H.I.E.L.D. since practically its inception; one of them even knew Director Carter herself back when she was with the S.S.R. and the woman doesn’t look much older than forty. Jemma thinks about all of the scientific progress and discoveries she must have seen so far and hopes she’ll see as many as she and Fitz grow old together. She looks at Fitz and thinks of his joke and wonders how she could only have three quarters of her life left.

When she talks to him four weeks later about field work, he looks at her like she’s mad. Why would she want to leave the lab, they’ve always been in the lab, they do great things in the lab. She doesn’t tell him that she can see the sand in the hourglass slipping away as she stares at the perpetual 18-year-olds around her, that all she can think about when she looks in the mirror is _what does growing old really mean?_ She talks about seeing the world and enjoying an adventure. She doesn’t mention that every time she thinks of seeing the world, she mentally adds _while she still can_.

 _What if they try to split us up?_ It terrifies him. She thinks it should terrify her, but she’s always been more assured than that.

 _That’s ridiculous, we’re partners._ She never uses the s-word.

He hems and haws over it for days, pointing out that they have their commute to work timed just right (never more than seven minutes, even with traffic), that all of their takeout places know their names (Fitzsimmons, they even call them that at the Thai place, and she has no idea if the name follows them or if it’s just inevitable that people will put it together), that the couch cushions have settled so that they sink perfectly within their spots (Fitz on the right, Jemma on the left, her feet usually up in his lap). She doesn’t know how this is supposed to make her stay.

It’s not like she would leave without him. She doesn’t think she can, not just on an official basis within S.H.I.E.L.D. but also because it would tear her apart and leave her emotionally bereft. But there are times that she wonders what it would be like to be alone and independent—to have always been alone and independent, to still be searching for that other half. Or maybe not searching at all. To be by herself but content, with only the questions for the world as her company.

But then Fitz will smile at her or bring her perfect cup of tea or take off his sweater and toss it at her head because he knows she’s cold even before she does and it’s a bit like sinking into bed at night, blanket wrapped around her, pillow soft under her head, and she knows that she’s home.

He eventually gives into field work, but he holds out longer than she thinks he will. She supposes there still has to be some surprises (there still has to be some surprises, right? There’s still three quarters left of her life). Fitz is undoubtedly more put out about failing their field exams than she is because he gets worked up over things, even things he doesn’t really want. When they’re assigned to a mobile command unit, he protests and whines and threatens to quit and then he packs his bags and his prototypes and he moves into the plane with her.

What excites Jemma the most is not necessarily getting to see the world—but they’re on a plane!—or having a private lab—she and Fitz can do all the science they could possibly dream!—but the fact that they’re not the oldest on the Bus. Agent Coulson is a welcoming man, but he has his secrets. He’s significantly older than many of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s top brass and Jemma wonders how old he really is. Agent May is similar in age, or at least has known her soulmate for a similar length of time. Neither of them wear wedding rings or any other outward signs of commitment or speak about their soulmates, but she supposes other than literally being around each other for every hour of the day, she and Fitz don’t either.

The last member of their team, Agent Ward, is still 18. Statistically, she knows, specialists are the least likely S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to find their matches, despite traveling and meeting the most people—often many find their soulmates and don’t even realize it, moving in and out of situations too quickly. She’s relieved it hasn’t happened to Agent Ward, but wonders what it must be like to suddenly realize you’ve started aging and no one else has, wondering which mark or stranger or victim you passed possibly half a world away is your soulmate and if they’ve even realized it yet. She smiles a bit more at Fitz, thankful for his constant and continuous presence.

It’s only when they pick up Skye does she start to have concerns. And really, it’s not that she doesn’t like Skye; she actually hopes that maybe they can be friends, quite likes the idea about having a girl close to her age. Skye is still 18, officially, and yes, she does act like it a bit, but her best guess is that she’d be close to Jemma’s age if she hadn’t stopped aging and it’s fun, just to hang out with another girl. Jemma isn't surprised that Skye hasn't found her soulmate--the girl hasn't even found a home that doesn't have a license plate. But she stares at Jemma and Fitz with a sense of awe, as it's unheard of, unfathomable that two people older than her are actually not that much older than her. Constantly squirming under the gaze, uncomfortable with her reverence, Jemma wants to tell her to stop but knows that with Skye it will only be opening the floodgates for conversations that Jemma does not want to have.

Fitz seems to like Skye too; he talks to her in the super-fast, animated way he does when he gets excited about a new project and he stares at her like he’s trying to figure out the little bits inside of her that make her tick. Jemma makes a decision to resolutely ignore it; Fitz generally has the attention of a goldfish and would probably have completed nothing of true scientific achievement in his life if not for her to keep him on task, which is why she earned two PhDs before they met and he only has one. She imagines it will fizzle out, like his plans to use the mass spectrometer in their old lab to make the world’s best ice cream ( _I’m going to need your help, Jemma, you’re the biologist,_ he had slurred). It’s rather good that they’re amazing together because his mind is so full of ideas and innovations and he flits from one genius advance in science to another barely before they’re finished with the first. The only thing he’s really ever been resolute on is a monkey.

And her. He’s never gotten sick of her yet, at least not that she can tell.

It’s that much more obvious when she gets sick; when she gets actually _sick_. Coulson quarantines her inside the lab and Fitz is stuck on the outside of the glass, alternately looking betrayed by everything and everyone he knows and giving her a little smile like he’s trying to cheer her up. She summons all of her strength to smile back, to try to focus on this antiserum, because all she’s thinking is: _I promised you so many things. You were promised a lifetime. We were supposed to grow old together. You grew old for no reason. I’m so sorry._

She can’t jump before looking at him one last time. He’s screaming her name, eyes wide with panic, and she wants to sooth him, wants to rub his back, squeeze his shoulder, thread her hands through his hair like she’s done so many times before that numbers have become irrelevant. But she can’t. She can’t touch him. All she can do is look and smile in the hopes that it gives him some kind of comfort. As the wind whips her out of the plane, she can’t help but think: _You were my promise, too._ Her life was full of promises, of promise, but Leo Fitz was most assuredly the default to which she had arranged it all.

Part of her feels like she survives based solely on Fitz’s will for her to live. It’s her antiserum, yes, but would there be an antiserum without him?

As she sits in his bunk, hands fluttering in front of her because she cannot shake the idea that she can’t touch him, she _can’t_ , her touch can only hurt him, she tries to reassure him that he’s the hero, that he saved her, that he’s the reason she doesn’t have to break her promise. When he tells her he was going to go after her, she bites her tongue to stop from asking: _Were you going to jump after me or were you just going to jump?_

Instead, she just kisses his cheek and she’s relieved not to feel that crackle of electricity. When her body tingles, she forcefully attributes it to the shocks that had been quickly demolishing her system from the inside out and she leaves quickly, knowing they still have the rest of their forever together.

Jemma manages to ignore the shift in their axis. She mentally files it away, does not analyze the fact that they touch that much more, stand that much closer, that when she turns to look at him, his eyes are already on hers and her insides twist in a way that is not unpleasant.

When he’s sent on the mission with Ward, every step she takes feels like she’s falling again. Everything is out of sync and even though she knows that she should not entertain Skye’s shenanigans, she finds herself sucked into her world of almost-espionage. Logically, she should feel bad about shooting Agent Sitwell, and she does, she feels awful, but those feelings aren’t anything compared to how relieved she is when Fitz is home and safe.

She wonders if it should scare her, how far she was willing to go, how, once she was committed, there was no line left for her. But Fitz just keeps talking about how brave he was, how he was a hero, and he looks at her with those eyes that have no right to be that blue and she thinks that there’s never been anything so important in this world to risk everything for.

The risks keep increasing and she finds her space intertwines with Fitz’s more and more; when Coulson is kidnapped, she is loath to leave his side, a lingering sense of terror that he too will be taken from her at any minute. She allows herself to relax a bit when they rescue Coulson, allows herself to think that some semblance of normalcy will institute itself over their lives.

Then Skye gets shot. She’s terrified and devastated and desperate to keep her friend alive, all of her medical knowledge running through her mind. Her thoughts jump randomly from blood loss to blood pressure to heart disease to rare genetic disorders and as she tries to focus her concentration, the lingering question is: _What if it had been Fitz?_

She can’t think about that because it makes her feel guilty and because she doesn’t allow herself to do so. Fitz is fine and he will be fine but Skye isn’t and she’s who needs her. When the full impact of the day falls on her, she falls into Fitz; he is the only thing keeping her afloat and she clings to him, clings to his endless hope and good heart and faith in her even when she can’t find it herself.

 

Agent Triplett is a nice man. She appreciates him helping her look after Skye, appreciates his kindness. Still 18, he looks at her like perhaps she is the answer to his question of persistent youth. She thinks, maybe, in other circumstances, in another life, she might warm to his glances, his smile, the way he regards her with such obvious intention.

 _How old are you?_ he asks, curiosity clearly piqued.

She and Fitz are 26. She doesn’t include Fitz in her answer, even though that’s how she answers it in her mind.

(Weeks later, when everything has fallen apart and it is only through sheer force of will that she is holding her life together, Trip will lounge across a hotel bed and look at her, friendly and casual, and wonder aloud, _When did you start aging?_

It will be a welcome distraction from the betrayal and fear and pain that courses through her during every waking moment. _I never stopped._

He won’t look surprised for very long. _When did you meet Fitz?_

 _We were 17_.)

When the world falls apart, when the ground splits open and the monsters crawl out, eager to feast on her happiness, all she can think of is Fitz. Though still 18, Victoria Hand commands the Hub with an iron fist, but Jemma cannot be afraid. She is not safe until Fitz is, her sanity guarded closely in the space between his heartbeats.

They track down her team to the standoff against Garrett and Hydra and every shot that rings out feels like it pierces her. She sees them all hitting Fitz, sees her life ending in a pool of his blood. As the doors open, she searches the room first for his body. When he gets up slowly, terror clear in his face, she rushes to him, flinging herself into his arms. He holds her to him and she can feel his shuddering breaths against her neck. He’s trembling and she wants to sooth him and she can’t help but bask in the feeling of him, warm and alive, and it’s too overwhelming to do anything but close her eyes and bury her face into his shoulder.

It’s the first time that she truly understands what it means that he is her soulmate.

Yet she feels adrift—Fitz is adamant about staying with Coulson and she’s not in disagreement, but everything that is happening feels like a story she’s hearing secondhand rather than something she’s experiencing. Hunted by the government, on the run to the arctic, a hidden bunker, Ward…Jemma sits back and lets it all lap at her like waves, never allowing herself be consumed by the startling revelations of her life.

It isn’t until she ends up at the bottom of the ocean that denial becomes acceptance. She doesn’t question her lack of the other stages of grief; she knows that Fitz experienced them for her. Jemma stares at his arm in the sling, the bruises starting to form on his face, and thinks that it’s almost acceptable that it should be like this. If they are supposed to grow old together, surely they should stop growing old together.

It doesn’t surprise her that they’re able to put their minds together to find a way out—but it does surprise her that Fitz doesn’t plan on coming. Jemma can’t fathom it. She’s not going to leave her soulmate at the bottom of the ocean, she can’t go on without him, and she desperately tries to get him to understand that.

_You’re more than that, Jemma._

The words make everything solid left inside of her crumble and they echo inside the hollow cavity of her chest. Everything she wants to say to him gets caught in her throat as she stares at him: _How can anyone be more than a soulmate? How could you possibly think I’m more important than you? I will do anything to keep you by my side_. The only thing that gets out are her tears as she hugs him and sobs, pressing kisses to his face in hopes that he will understand all the things she can hardly comprehend.

After he pushes the button, she considers dropping the oxygen. As far as she is concerned, the only options are both of them reaching the surface or both of them surrendering to the water. Instead, she draws in the breath and grabs hold of his shirt, tugging him behind her. She has too many things left to say. He promised her they would grow old together.

She lives without him for nine days. Every day he doesn’t wake up, she feels herself losing more hope, losing the will to carry on. To watch him lie there and be unable to do anything is her worst nightmare. The few times she does sleep, she has actual nightmares, ones where Ward finds them, ones where water fills her lungs and she chokes on nothing until she vomits. The worst ones are the ones where she stops aging, where neither of them age and she watches him in stasis for the rest of her immortal life, knowing she will never find anyone other than him but that she cannot be his soulmate.

He wakes slowly and she savors every second: the way his eyes flutter open, the way he breathes without assistance, how when he tilts his head to the side to look at her and the corner of his mouth twitches a bit she knows he’s smiling. At first, she tells herself that the little things are all that matters, that everything else will come in time. But then they don’t; they come in starts and stops, more steps backwards than forwards and his frustration and self-loathing stabs at her.

It’s so easy for her to be his everything—she’s not sure she ever wasn’t. She helps him make his meals and picks out his clothes and finishes his sentences and that was okay when he was capable of doing it himself, but it’s not anymore because he’s not anymore. Jemma’s smart enough to know when she’s enabling him to sink further into his depression and farther away from his treatment and the thought that her actions are hurting him sickens her.

She finds Coulson in his office during one of his few stops at the base and she sits in front of his desk as he talks about different doctors they can call, people he’s tried to get ahold of. He thanks her for her work and help, as if it was possible for her to do anything else, and she finds herself curling into herself, pulling her legs into her body so she can hide her face, hide her tears from him. When he gets up from his desk and kneels next to her, slowly stroking her hair as he talks professionally about needing an agent to go undercover in Hydra, she knows he’s created this as an out for her, as her escape route. She finally looks up, sees his compassion and understanding and concern, sees his complete lack of judgement. So she nods.

Hydra asks her about her soulmate in the interview process. _We met while we were at S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy_ , she tells them candidly. _We’re no longer in contact_. It’s the truth, she must always tell the truth, but it burns her mouth, churns her stomach.

She tells herself that this experience will be what it would have been like had she never met Fitz, for she is certain that even if they were not soulmates, he would still be in her life. She thrives on the sense of independence, buries herself into the science, revels in discovery and knowledge. She thinks her life might have been this way were she soulmate-less. She could have lived indefinitely, gaining new insights into the world and sharing them to help people.

It has less of a shine than she thinks it should. She plays at happiness for almost a week before the isolation starts to bear down on her. She misses Fitz so much that it physically hurts her, the loneliness carving out her insides and leaving her barren. There are nights when she lies in bed and swears that her heart stops beating; it feels like her body is physically rejecting being away from him as she cries herself to sleep for the third night in a row. When she does sleep, it’s restless as she dreams of his body pressed intimately against hers.

Eternal life surrounded by science is less enthusing once she’s living it and she wonders if she would have felt this empty hole inside of her without knowing Fitz. Does it hurt more now knowing what she’s missing? Or would it have been impossible to not search for her other half? He had simply shown up before, arrived in her life without any effort on her part and settled in as if he belonged there.

Idly, she wonders what it would have been like to meet him now, after so much in their lives. They never talk about how he had originally hated her and how it’s a relief that he got over that before they realized what was happening, before they realized that everyone around them looked the same, but that 19 did not look like 18 and it seemed likely that 20 would not either. It became a simple notion that had settled into the truths of their friendship, a relationship that did not change, even as they did.

 _It makes sense_ , is all she had said on the matter when he had brought it up, stammering, one night while they watched television.

He had been quiet for a long time and when she finally glanced up at him, one hand in the popcorn bowl and the other on his knee, he had simply smiled at her. _Guess you’re right. You’re the only one who ever understands me, anyway_.

She thinks that if he met her at this moment, he would hate her now, too, and the thought makes the beaker in her hand shake almost uncontrollably.

As the mission begins to wear on her, she soldiers through. On days when Coulson doesn’t visit or there isn’t a dead drop, she can almost pretend that this is her life, if she forgets she’s working for pure evil. She’s just a girl who goes to work, who tries her very hardest, who is invested in making new discoveries for the scientific community. This compartmentalization doesn’t last long most days; even something as small as a wrench will remind her of Fitz.

It’s becoming increasingly obvious to her that she does not want to live forever. She just wants to live with him.

She shouldn’t be relieved about her cover being blown, but as she’s escorted to the plane by Agent Morse, she can feel her heart begin to lift. Trip’s familiar smile fills her with a warmth that almost eclipses the nervousness and anticipation of heading back to the Playground. Coulson and May welcome her home like a hero returning from war, but it is as clear to them as it is to her that her attention is elsewhere.

Her eyes drink Fitz in as she enters the lab: the heavy knit cardigan she has stolen more than once, the unshaven stubble on his cheeks, his hands as they twist together. It hits her all at once and she wants to collapse with relief because it’s so immediately clear how much better he is, even more evident when he starts to talk. She wants to run to him and lose herself in his arms, reenergize from his presence.

Instead, she walks slowly, as if afraid she’ll startle him and he’ll run off. This is not how it played out in her head the thousands of times she had imagined it, but she cannot shake this feeling that she is no longer welcome. That she does not deserve to come back to him. He is guarded as he watches her and she doesn’t think he has ever looked at her that way before. She doesn’t want him to ever again.

Despite everything, they still work together and she finds that she cannot keep her eyes off of him. She tells herself it’s to note and mark his improvement, but it doesn’t explain the way she stares at his jaw when he’s clenching it in thought, or the way she finds herself thinking that the world might need a new classification of blue to correctly identify his eyes and if she stares at them for a little bit longer, she may figure it out.

It’s harder when he’s with others—she sees him with Mack more than anyone else. Even knowing that Mack cannot be his soulmate, it’s hard not to feel replaced. She’s known people who didn’t get along with their soulmates, who saw them as best friends, who only saw them as occasional acquaintances. She knows that it’s not an unbreakable, unspeakable bond. For some, it’s just another person in the world who is the exact same age.

She wonders if that’s who she is to Fitz now: the girl on the other side of the lab whose internal clock ticks at the same rate as his. But then he’ll look over at her or ask her a question and it gives her the tiniest bit of hope.

His first mission back into the field is without her and she doesn’t know if that’s by necessity or by design; Coulson isn’t apt to share these things with her. She stays back on the base to help May search through Peggy Carter’s old files, a worthy distraction on most days, but this day she cannot help how her mind drifts to the field mission, wonders what they’re doing, how it’s going, if she is needed.

Her questions are answered when Trip returns with a bullet in him and she’s forced to jump in and help keep him alive. When he’s stable and resting, Coulson debriefs her on what went down on the mission. She files away the necessary information about Trip’s wound, about the procedures Skye’s dad performed, but her brain is only attune to one thing: it could have been Fitz.

She scrubs up, then paces her room for a good half hour before deciding that if she cannot stay still, she should put her energy to good use. Fitz’s bunk is three down and she ignores every fear to go tap lightly on his door. He’s wearing night clothes and his hair is still damp from his shower when he opens the door and his eyes search her face questioningly. There are thousands of reasons why she is standing there right now, but she can’t give voice to any of them.

Still, he steps back to let her in and she halts her frantic need to pace by forcing herself to stand still in the middle of his room. It doesn’t look all that different from what she remembered, from any of his rooms she’s seen throughout the years: blueprints and random tools littering every flat surface, clothes and wet towels on the floor. Instinct takes over and she moves to his bed, fixing his blanket and rearranging his pillows. He’s staring at her with such curiosity that she just sits down on the side of the mattress, staring at her hands in her lap.

He sits next to her but allows a space between them, just enough that she has to notice it. _Trip’s going to be alright,_ she finally says. He nods and runs a hand through his closely shorn curls.

She wants to ask him if he’s alright, wants to thoroughly check him over, but his shoulders are square and he stares at the opposite wall instead of looking at her. A sudden need comes over her and she can’t help herself as she reaches up to run her thumb over his jawline, the fine prick of his stubble scratching her skin. He turns towards her, his cheek settling in her hand as he stumbles over his questions in a daze.

 _I like it,_ she says as she gently caresses the side of his face. _It makes you look your age._

It astounds her that she has seen him grow more in ten years than some people will grow in a hundred. It’s nothing if not a gift and she smiles at him with affection and fondness.

 _Jemma…_ He doesn’t pull away, doesn’t dare move his face away from her hand, but she can see the confusion settling in behind his eyes and it breaks her heart.

She eases her hand away, letting it drift over his arm. _I just wanted to talk… I’m glad you’re okay._ He squeezes his eyes shut and her heart clenches in her chest. _It’s not that I had any doubt, I just—Trip got shot and it could have been you._ _I’m sorry that I left, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you._

His left knee shakes as they sit in silence and then he looks at her. _Are you? Sorry you left?_

 _I’m sorry you hate me for it._ He opens his mouth, maybe to protest, but she says, _I needed to help you and that’s the only way I could. It was the only way to help either of us. If I wasn’t here, you wouldn’t have needed me so much._ Learned helplessness is the term the doctors had warned her about, but she’s mostly afraid that it has come to apply to how much she needs him instead.

He licks his lips slowly. _Did you like it? Being gone?_

A lump grows in her throat and she wonders what he’s possibly imagined in her absence. _I thought I would be like everyone else. Do my work—there and for S.H.I.E.L.D.—and pretend that there wasn’t anything else._ His nod is quick and he keeps his head bowed down, looking at the floor. Sucking in a deep breath, she says, _It was awful. I thought it was everything I might have wanted and everything I might have seen for myself and I hated every bit of it._

She can hear him swallow loudly next to her. _Yeah?_

Reaching for his hand, she savors the familiar span of his palm and roughness of his callouses. He looks at her as his fingers curl around hers and she wonders if he can feel her heart beating. _I just wanted to be back here with you._

_Really?_

_I have no interest in a world without you in it._

He stares at her with wide eyes and his hand tightens over hers. _I…you know, I…_

Her free hand wraps gently around his neck as she whispers, _You’re everything to me, Fitz. You’re all that matters._

When she leans into him, her lips finding his, he doesn’t tense or push her away. Instead, he sinks into her, mouth firm and insistent against hers. She feels warm all over as she kisses him, the kind of warmth she feels when she allows herself to wake up slowly, her body coming to life. His hands come up to cup her face as he kisses her with intent and she surrenders herself to the feeling of him.

When he finally sits back, he doesn’t move his hands from her face and she tilts her head to the side to kiss the inside of his wrist. _I missed you,_ he says, closing his eyes and leaning his forehead against hers. She strokes her fingers up through his still damp hair, watching all the tension fade out of his face at the touch. The beauty of him in front of her, open and vulnerable, is too much and she cannot help herself from kissing him again.

His tongue sweeps across the seam of her lips and she sighs as her insides ache for him. Jemma wraps her arms around his neck to pull herself closer to him; he is solid and strong, so unlike the fragile man she left so many months ago. As she licks at the roof of his mouth and hears him groan, the lingering active part of her brain reminds her that she almost missed this and she clutches tightly to his shirt.

He presses her down to his bed and they kiss for what might be forever—Jemma will be the first to admit she no longer has any concept of time. When he kisses her neck lazily, letting his lips linger over and over against her skin, she rubs his shoulders and pulls for the blanket. It’s been a long day and they have time.

Fitz pulls the blanket over them and presses his face to her neck. _Stay._

She eases herself away only so she can take off her shoes, then curls back into Fitz. Her head ends up tucked under his where she can hear his heart beating. He falls asleep with his arms around her and she can’t help but smile when their breathing instinctively syncs up. One breath for the two of them.

As she closes her eyes and allows sleep to consume her, her last thought is of how much she loves this man. There are no lingering doubts in her mind as to what it means that he is her soulmate; there would be no point in aging without him, but also no point in living without him and existing in a life that has no meaning for her. Forever would not be worth it without Fitz.

Pressing one last kiss to his chest before drifting off, she thinks that she cannot wait to grow another day older.

 


End file.
